Sunday 25 November 2012

Merry Christmas from our house to yours ...

The other day Mr P. the girls and I were out walking with the dogs and were paying particular attention to old post boxes and which Royal Crest they had on the front.  

We have a post box quite close to where we live which has 'VR' (for Queen Victoria) on it instead of 'ER' (Our present Queen Elizabeth).  

We think that this is quite special (although I am sure that there will be thousands of them around the country) .We like to guess how many Christmas cards might have been posted in the little box and of course how many letters will have been posted to Santa in it since the 1800's  

 I have never created a Christmas card with a post box on before so I thought I would have a go and here is the result ...

{if you would like to have a go the links through to the shopping list have been added so you can see the exact products used} 


I created the card on a large white square card as I wanted to be able to get quite a bit of detail on the postbox itself.

I covered the card with brown parcel paper and added strips of the following papers to the bottom of the card with double sided tape:

Authentique - Peaceful - Freeze 

Jillibean Soup - WINTER TORTELLINI - GARLIC FLAKES 


I also added a strip of  ribbon

I used a Sakura gel pen to add some zig zag stitches



I drew a sketch of the postbox first so that I could make sure that everything was going to fit on the card.


{If you would like to use the sketch as a template just click onto the picture and print}

The template was then cut out and drawn around onto a piece of  Authentique Festive Paper



The black base of the postbox was created by dragging a black ink pad over a spare piece of the same red paper used to cut out the postbox.  As the Authentique paper is quite textured the ink pad hits and misses areas of the paper so you can still see some of the red paper showing through.

After the paper has dried re-trace the bottom of the postbox template, cut out and adhere to the bottom of the postbox.

The rest of the detail was copied from the original sketch onto the red postbox with the Sakura Gelly Pen .

The letters 'SC' came from a sheet of Basic Grey letter stickers which I coloured with an 
18ct Gold Krylon Leafing Pen (the same pen was also used to add the detail at the top of the postbox)

The white area (for the collection times) was coloured with a Tim Holtz white marker and then the detail added with the black pen again. {N.B. When you use the white pen you need to let it dry before you see the colour!}


The '&' sign came from the same sheet of Basic Grey alpha stickers used for the 'SC'.  
The 'Merry Christmas' stamp  and the 'Happy New Year' stamp  were stamped onto a little more of the Authentique patterned paper and trimmed.

'from our house to yours' was taken from a sheet of Jillibean Soup stickers


The Cardinal was trimmed from a sheet of Authentique Festive Paper 

The Holly leaves were punched using a Woodware Holly punch from the Authentique and Bazzill cardstock.

 beige ink was dragged around the leaves to create a little dimension.

A flower was added to the top of the postbox and  Red Gemstones were added to the middle of the flower.

Finally a little Stickles Glitter Glue  was added to the card to create a little sparkle!

I hope that you enjoy!

Friday 23 November 2012

It must be my lucky day ...

Well what can I say, It has definitely been my lucky day today!

I received 2 parcels in the post.  

The first looked like this ...

What can it be I can hear you ask!



It was the most beautiful painting of a Chestnut mare from the very talented 
Faye over at TheFaerieGlade.  

For any of you that have ever met me you know that I absolutely love horses whether it's the real thing or painting them.  Faye showed this painting on her Facebook page a few days ago and I just fell in love so had to have it.  She arrived today and I am so pleased to own her.



I haven't named her yet as I don't want to rush into anything.  I think that such a special horse deserves a very special name.  Any suggestions?

***************************************************


As if that wasn't enough, I also had a second parcel ...




I have wanted some vintage ice stakes for ages as I want to fill them with baubles, foliage and candy canes to decorate the house for Christmas.  

Mr. P found these on e-bay and today they arrived .... I am delighted to say the least! 

I'll post another piccie once they are hung by the chimney with care!

Well what a lovely day ... I wonder what Mr Postman will bring tomorrow!

Wednesday 21 November 2012

Watercolour Christmas Cards ...


Interested in Watercolour workshops at Philpotts?  

Sign up for the newsletter on the homepage of our website (www.philpotts.com) and we will confirm watercolour workshop dates when we have new dates in the diary.

As a thank you we will e-mail you templates for the 3 card designs above and a detailed instruction sheet showing you how to watercolour the images and how to get a professional finish from your work.

We'll also show you how to mount and finish the cards ready for sending.

Go on ... get your paints out and have a go!








Tuesday 20 November 2012

Weekend Crafting ...

This weekend was a rather quiet one, no birthday parties for the girls to go to (quite unusual in our house), no special plans and the weather was not that inspiring. So we sat by the fire and watched Harry Potter films.  

The girls have seen the films many times over with some editing by daddy at the scary parts (they are only 7 and 10).  I have never seen all of the films and need to catch up for a special trip that we have coming up in December (it's a secret at the minute so I will tell you all about it at a later date!).  

We managed to get through the first 3 films which I thoroughly enjoyed ... I made this little needle felted snowman to hang on the tree at the same time ...





                   ... so all in all it turned out to be quite a productive and relaxing weekend after all!





Monday 12 November 2012

Christmas Shopping ...

We are well and truly getting in to the Christmas spirit at the Philpott house!


This is the first year that the girls have wanted to go Christmas Shopping and buy their own presents for people instead of just wrapping something that I have bought and given to them.  They have been saving their pocket money for a while and Mia has even asked if she can do chores to earn some money in order to top up her spending money.
  
This weekend was the special weekend and on Sunday we all trotted off to Darts Farm at Topsham, Exeter.  
We had lots of fun!  Daddy and I had to keep splitting up, taking one of the girls with us each time so that they could find a present in secret.  We had lots of running back to the car to hide the bags and lots of dodging each other in the store.  On more than one occasion we did not plan where we were going to meet properly and so also had lots of waiting around.  Lots of hints were dropped when we saw something that we liked to point the other party in the direction of the perfect present (I cannot lie ... the hints were mostly from me in Mr P's direction!).  
We had a lovely day and the girls mission was accomplished - everyone on the list with a pressie!


After shopping we needed a walk along the sea front at Exmouth ...



The beach makes Mia want to do cart wheels!


 And makes Amy want to take her shoes and socks off despite being advised that it was a little too cold!


The girls are always looking out  for heart shaped stones, shells and well anything heart shaped that they can give me to keep so we just had to take a picture of this little shell and its heart shaped shadow ...



And of course we had to make our mark on the sand!



We had a lovely walk and things were going all so well until Amy caught her toe in a net on one of the sand dunes.  At first we thought that she had just grazed it but a morning in Accident and Emergency at the local hospital today confirmed that she has in fact broken it.  She will be absolutely fine and just has to have her toes strapped together for a couple of weeks.  On the plus side she is thrilled to be getting out of PE for a while.

Oh dear I knew I should have insisted that she keep those shoes on!

xx


Thursday 8 November 2012

New Christmas Workshop ...

Anyone fancy a spot of last minute card making?


I have limited the number of spaces to 6 so that we can all enjoy the day in a relaxed environment.  

If you would like more info or would like to book then click on the poster which will take you through to the site!

Happy Crafting 
Teresa
x

Tuesday 6 November 2012

The new online shop is open ...



After weeks ... no... make that months of designing, creating and adding stock we finally 
have a new on line store.

You may have noticed that we have had the shop live for a couple of weeks already.  
We tried to add stock onto the site and keep it 'hidden' until we could check that everything worked properly but people found the new Christmas ranges that had come in by searching on Google.  Our system is set up in such a way that if we have added it to the store even though the product is 'hidden' it can still be accessed via a back door i.e. by searching for it on a search engine.  Most certainly a lesson learnt there!  In the end we decided that we might as well make it live even though it did not have much stock loaded.


Anyway we are open at last!  We still have a huge amount of stock to add on (especially the craft stock) which will realistically still take several weeks to complete but we are almost there.



We have a new facility now which we did not have with the old site in that you will be able to earn points every time you shop.  These points can be used to either pay or part pay for item/s when ever you want and can be used to pay for any product or products (apart from carriage costs).



I hope that you like looking around the new site.  Until 18th December if you use the code above when you check out you will receive an additional 10% off your purchase.  That applies to all items not just craft supplies so if you are looking for a new chair or a new bed then you can use the code to get the discount as well.

Happy Crafting
Teresa xx

Monday 5 November 2012

Peace, Hope & Joy card ...

Sometimes you need a card which is larger because it is for a special occasion or you need lots of people to sign it.  Today I have a project to share with you that uses our new  8" Square (20.3 sq cm) Scalloped White Cards and Envelopes  


To recreate the card ...

Start with a '&' which you have printed off the computer in a nice font.  I used 'CG Times' and sized it to '500' points. 

Cut out and place this over the card towards the top right and fix it with REPOSITIONABLE adhesive {careful not to use too much as you will need to pull the '&' off afterwards}.

Stamp the TRENDY SNOW CLEAR STAMP over the whole card with  DISTRESS INK - PUMICE STONE

Once dry use some coordinating Distress Markers to create a splatter effect.


{to create a splatter effect - scribble the markers, one at a time onto an acrylic block, add water with a paintbrush and flick the end of the brush over the card - let one colour dry before adding another}



Once the background is dry remove the '&' sign carefully and add some ALPHABET CARD STOCK STICKER  letters to spell out the words 'Peace', 'Hope' and 'Joy.

  PAPER FLOWERS - PASTEL were added to the bottom right hand corner of the card.

Before adding them I splattered the flowers with the Distress markers and left to dry.

The holly leaves were created with a SINGLE HOLLY LEAF PUNCH


The middle of the flowers were created with 10mm GLITTER DOMES - WHITE

{I added a little Forest Green marker pen around the base of each of the glitter domes before adding them to the centre of the flowers}.

The holly leaves and petals were edged with STICKLES - GLITTER GLUE - DIAMOND


Finally add some organza ribbon around the spine of the card and attach 3  MINI BELLS  to the middle of the bow with some silver ribbon.

Hope you enjoy!

Saturday 3 November 2012

Out of hibernation ...

Winter must have arrived because my little winter mice and robin have finally come out of hibernation to wait for Santa!







Friday 2 November 2012

A bit of comfort ...


This week we had a new design of recliner chair arrive ....

The 'Rome' is a bonded leather swivel recliner with both Heat and Massage action.

The chair retails at £599 but our price is £298.97. 

Use code:

 BG10%1212


at the checkout and until 18th Dec you will save another 10%.

The chair comes in Brown, Black and Cream.  


Thursday 1 November 2012

What a party ...

Last night we had ourselves a little Halloween Party ...


We had spooky food and a spooky treasure hunt.  We watched a spooky Disney film {Girl vs Monster}
and then ...


 We had a visit from a very scary visitor who had come along to join in the Halloween fun!

Amy was not keen so Daddy had to go off and get a glass and piece of paper to catch him.  The only problem is that before Daddy got back Mr Spider had disappeared off under the piano!

We'll catch you next time Mr Spider!

Hope you all had a nice evening
xx